Keating claims unions want to roll back protectionism

AM Archive - Monday, 24 July , 2000 00:00:00

Reporter: Mark Willacy

COMPERE: Former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, has waded into the Labor Party's policy-making process claiming that unions who want to roll back to the days of protectionism need their heads read.

Mr Keating's robust approach is out of step with the current leader, Kim Beazley, and with the manufacturing unions who say they're furious. As Mark Willacy reports from Canberra, the stoush is just a taste of what's expected to be a bitter trade debate at this weekend's ALP national conference.

MARK WILLACY: Nothing spices up a policy debate like a former party leader or Prime Minister putting in his two bob's worth. In an interview with the union website 'Workers on Line', Paul Keating has blasted the attitude of some unions to trade policy.

The former Municipal and Shire Council Employees Union advocate reckons blue collar workers who lose their manufacturing jobs should simply find another. Mr Keating suggests a replacement job in new industries linked to the globalised economy. He argues that people who lose their jobs find better jobs and he asks, did we ever hurt anybody by liberating them from the car assembly line.

JULIUS ROWE: Well it's a load of nonsense. The reality is that most people who lose their jobs in manufacturing end up either unemployed or in low-skilled, low-paid casual jobs such as making hamburgers.

MARK WILLACY: Julius Rowe is the national president of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. He acknowledges that Paul Keating's comments are sure to spice up an already heated debate within the Labor Party about trade policy.

Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, is trying hard to repel a push by the AMWU to replace its free trade policy with the concept of fair trade. This would involve Labor supporting tariffs on imports from countries which deny workers decent labour and wage standards.

It's a policy stoush which Kim Beazley is unlikely to escape unscathed. AMWU president, Julius Rowe, says the ALP national conference is a crucial test of Labor's commitment to workers.

JULIUS ROWE: Well I think it's absolutely essential that the Labor Party adopt policies in support of fair trade rather than free trade and actually intervenes to do something about our manufacturing industry.

MARK WILLACY: But do you think your members really know what Labor stands for on this issue?

JULIUS ROWE: Well I think there's quite a long way to go to ensure that our members do understand where people stand. The fact is that our members are angry. They are very angry about the job losses. They're very angry about the effects of economic rationalism, and they need political parties in Australia to be speaking to them.

MARK WILLACY: And the ramifications for Labor if it doesn't adopt your recommendations of a fair trade policy?

JULIUS ROWE: Well I think they're throwing away a golden opportunity. I mean we've got, it's a golden opportunity for a change in government. But a change in government has to be built on positive policies and those policies have to turn their back on the economic rationalism of the past.